midicnMusic History 中文

Paul Hindemith

German composer of usable music who built his own theory for extended tonality

ModernPianoCounterpoint

Who he was

Paul Hindemith (1895–1963) was born in Hanau, Germany, and became a violinist, violist, composer and theorist. As a teenager he earned money in dance bands and opera orchestras, and by his early twenties he was concertmaster of the Frankfurt Opera. In 1927 he took a composition post in Berlin. After the Nazis banned his music he went to Switzerland in 1938, then to the United States in 1940 to teach at Yale, returning to Europe in 1953; he died in Frankfurt in 1963.

His place

Germany after the First World War wanted music that was clear, useful and unpretentious, and the label for it was new objectivity. Hindemith was the busiest composer of that generation: he wrote Gebrauchsmusik for amateur ensembles and let the Boston and ragtime of the day into the 1922 Suite. He kept his distance from twelve-tone method and built instead a theory of tonality organised by the closeness of intervals, set out in The Craft of Musical Composition, which made "a tonal centre without functional harmony" something that could be taught.

What to hear

Listen first for the character of the material. The movements of the 1922 Suite are named after dances; the March is hard, the Boston and Ragtime are imported ballroom rhythms, but the harmony is deliberately sour and the sweetness removed. Then the density of counterpoint: his piano writing often behaves like a string quartet, three or four lines at once, with the middle voice never mere filling. Then the harmonic centre, which is always clear, though the chord it lands on is usually a fourths-built frame rather than a familiar triad. Finally the alternation of machine and chorale, where Op.37 can turn from motor to hymn within a few bars.

Key works

Influence

He turned "a composer must play and must write for amateurs" into a professional ethic, and demonstrated in Ludus Tonalis how Bach's fugue could organise twentieth-century harmony. In postwar conservatories his theory stood beside twelve-tone method for decades, and his piano sonatas remain the most direct door into extended tonality.

Listen in the library

1922 Suite for Piano, Op.26: 1. MarchC11:30《1922 组曲》Op.26 的进行曲，听爵士时代的两步舞被写成生硬的和弦（C1）DetailsPiano Sonata No. 2 in G Major: II. LebhaftC12:18《第二钢琴奏鸣曲》第二乐章，听四度叠置的和弦怎样保持调性中心（C1）DetailsLudus TonalisC157:21《音的游戏》，十二首赋格与间奏，听巴赫的形式被用来组织新和声（C1）DetailsKlaviermusik, Op.37C16:19《钢琴音乐》Op.37，听机械节奏与对位同时进行，像一台会思考的机器（C1）Details

All tracks from midicn-lib — inline badge is the license tier (C1 commercial / C2 non-commercial / C3 study only).

Sources

  • 兴德米特生平、柏林教职与美国流亡，参 The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians 的 Hindemith 条目；本文为原创表述
  • 《作曲技法》的调性理论与《音的游戏》的结构，参通行兴德米特研究；实例说明由本站撰写

Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.